Obesity Lead To Discrimination

A new study from Yale University suggests the converse trend: rather than feeling tolerance in our society, the overweight and obese say they feel more heavily discriminated against now than they did a decade ago.

Led by Tatiana Andreyeva, a postdoctoral research associate at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, a team of researchers questioned 1,100 subjects, aged 35 to 74, twice over a 10-year span .Participants answered nine additional questions about everyday experiences, such as how they were treated in restaurants, and whether they had encountered name-calling, harassment or threats. The subjects were asked to indicate the reasons they felt they had been discriminated against whether it was because of age, gender, race, height or weight, physical disability, religion or sexual orientation. Between the two survey periods, the rate of discrimination due to height or weight increased from 7% of respondents to 12% of respondents.

The study is one of the first to track patterns of discrimination based on weight. It's worth noting, however, that the survey relied on people's own perception of discrimination. In addition, the authors found that rates of discrimination by age and gender also increased in the same time period, suggesting that several forms of bias - or perhaps sensitivity to perceived bias - is on the rise overall, not just against the overweight. If rates of weight discrimination are indeed on the rise, say the authors, then it's up to society to mandate legal protections for those who are overweight, just as laws protect people from discrimination by race, gender, disability and age.

P.S. As to me I’m not thin, I do not keep any diet, I love chocolate and feel so happy…